The first Mothers Day Gift I can remember giving my Mom was a narrow navy blue belt with a long narrow gold buckle. I was a seven-year-old Bronx kid, and such as times were, I was allowed to walk down to the end of the block past the four buildings (955, 923, 911 and 901 Walton Avenue) that sprawled between my building and Murray and Murray’s candy store. Next to it was a drug store owned by a man named Bernie, where I thought eating a cream cheese and lettuce sandwich along with an egg cream at the counter made me as close to a grown-up as a kid could get.

May 1st is a holiday that children celebrate here in the Midwest with the sweetest custom: they make home-made baskets, fill them with flowers and candy and deliver the baskets to neighbors. The gift is anonymous. It’s also the only time a child has parental permission to ring a doorbell and then run like the wind.

I have walked out of plays, clapped when the curtain came down, jumped to my feet and clapped until my hands hurt. I have been in big Broadway venues, tiny hole-in-the-wall theatres, off-Broadway theatres, high school auditoriums and outdoor venues.

Mean girls. Bully boys. There’s so much in the news about bullying these days. Used to be, we more readily accepted playground transgressions and lunchroom nastiness. “Kids will be kids,” we said. “Children need to learn how to take care of themselves,” we thought. And the teachers too often affirmed: no one likes a tattle-tale.